Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is not only raising the volume of the gubernatorial contest. He is also raising the bar.
McAuliffe is rolling out a series of position papers on energy and business that go well beyond the typical two-page brochure full of bromides. This is not to say they eschew bromides; they include plenty. But they include more than mere bromides. In this day and age, that's commendable.
It's also risky. Staking out policy details invites scrutiny and a demand for more. How, for instance, does McAuliffe plan to "improve the efficiency of home natural gas furnaces"? How will his emphasis on fostering innovative technology avoid redundancy in state efforts? (Virginia already has a Center for Innovative Technology, for instance.) How would his attempt to streamline the regulatory permitting process differ from similar attempts in the past?
McAuliffe's latest proposal calls for a pilot program in which the state would help businesses defray the cost of their federal payroll taxes. That looks a lot like former Gov. Jim Glimore's car-tax relief, which uses state funds to offset local revenue lost by rolling back the personal-property tax. Some state Democrats have long criticized car-tax relief as little more than a tax-revenue shell game.
Yet by inviting such questions, McAuliffe invites other contenders to focus on issues of genuine substance rather than petty personal attacks and cheap, zinger-of-the-day point-scoring. A well-known aphorism (or perhaps a bromide) contends that small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas. Petty personal attacks and cheap zingers will appear with more frequency as November approaches. But if it is too much to call McAuliffe a great mind, then at least his substantive pitches have raised expectations and pointed the way toward a different, more high-toned campaign.
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